Glorious Goodwood: Crowley can't wait for his favourite week

It's the Qatar Goodwood Festival (or as the locals call it Glorious Goodwood) next week and it has to be one of my favourite weeks of the year, writes Sussex jockey Jim Crowley.
Jim Crowley is Goodwood-boundJim Crowley is Goodwood-bound
Jim Crowley is Goodwood-bound

Obviously the quality of racing is very good and there are plenty of very good horses running – it’s always nice to ride a winner there.

But what I really like about it is it’s a little more relaxed than some of other the big festivals. It’s my local track, so a lot of friends and family will go and it has a great social feel to it.

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Although so much can change between now, and when the festival gets going (especially with our unpredictable weather this summer), I have some nice horses to look forward to riding.

Algometer (trained by David Simcock), who ran in the Investec Derby, will be aimed at the Qatar Gordon Stakes on the Wednesday – but if it came up very firm he wouldn’t run.

Solar Flare (trained by William Knight) in the Qatar Stewards’ Cup has a good chance and I won on him last time out at Nottingham – I would hope to be there or thereabouts.

Finally Majoris, who is trained by Hugo Palmer, will run in the Nursery on the Thursday. He is sired by the mighty Frankel who won the feature race of the week – the Qatar Sussex Stakes – twice, and I’d hope he’d have a very good chance.

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My season started very slowly and I was a little disappointed but in the past two weeks or so, it has really picked up and I’ve had 15 winners.

That’s put me in the top ten of the Stobart Flat Jockeys’ Championship and I’m aiming to be in the top three or four by the end of the Championship.

Fingers crossed I can add to my tally next week at Goodwood!

* Keep up to date with the Stobart Flat Jockeys’ Championship at www.greatbritishracing.com/championships

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